Pro-Islamist Left Exposed

[sihhi]

thats what it read like to me - he definately plays to an islamist audience with prounoucements like taht and various other stuff he has said like him going on about not drinking alcohol and his leaflet saying "God knows who is a muslim". Such a populist wank!!!

He is playing to an overtly Islamist (usually younger) and (older) traditional often rural origin Kashmiris or Sylhetis (formerly Labour often via clientelist links or nothing)

The leaflet in 2012, also in Urdu apparently.

 

[IC3D]

Galloway appears to of got a bit of sneaky fundraising cash from Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: It was not the ministry of defense or foreign affairs or interior. The ministry that handled the highest amount of secret funds since 2009 was the Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT).

In May 2011, the Foreign Office conceded before the PAC that it had paid British Labour party MP George Galloway 135,000 Pounds from its secret fund to promote Pakistan’s viewpoint on Indian-held Kashmir.

http://x.dawn.com/2013/05/27/moit-tops-the-list-of-secret-fund-distributors/

 

[butchersapron]

GG wasn't a labour MP in the period reported. Fits entirely with his MO though.

 

[IC3D]

butchersapron I know he was running for election for Respect, eta was he in Labour after 2009?

 

[butchersapron]

He was hammering kashmir in the 2004/5 election run up, that's for sure. Examples can be found in the archives here. But this money mentioned must have came after that. Did he have it before i wonder?

 

[IC3D]

Does he routinely approach Pakistani state when his election campaigns need cash?

 

[butchersapron]

He pimped Musharaff as the only sort of person who could hold pakistan together and so his miltary dictatorship was required in those conditions when an RESPECT MP and campaigning to be one, then suddenly stopped when the latter was removed and now claims to have been his most implacable opponent.

 

[Ole]

Has galloway actually converted to islam? the language he uses is very islamist.. you could almost imagine he said murtad rather than renegade there...

He usually tries to imply as strongly as possible that he's a Muslim without explicitly saying it - giving it all the Islamic vocabulary and so on. I think he's losing control of himself recently though, this is from The Telegraph last year (via the linked OLFA report):

At Mr Galloway’s official campaign rally in Bradford’s Hanover Square last Sunday, footage of which was still available yesterday on his own website, he said: “I’m a better Pakistani than he [Mr Hussain] will ever be. God knows who’s a Muslim and who is not. And a man that’s never out of the pub shouldn’t be going around telling people you should vote for him because he’s a Muslim. A Muslim is ready to go to the US Senate, as I did, and to their face call them murderers, liars, thieves and criminals. A Muslim is somebody who’s not afraid of earthly power but who fears only the Judgment Day. I’m ready for that, I’m working for that and it’s the only thing I fear.”

 

[sihhi]

Does he routinely approach Pakistani state when his election campaigns need cash?

He has a surprising ability to bend towards every group in power in Pakistan notably by saying it's not for anyone British to comment or criticise Pakistani internal affairs and at the same time repeatedly propagandising about occupied Kashmir, and against the odd Sindhi muhajir nationalist (mostly middle-class refugees from India after Partition) MQM - every major force in Pakistan hates the MQM.

In 1999 he wrote this in the Mail on Sunday approving the new military regime after it was clear it was not going to be a flash in the pan:

"The truth is that war is too important to be left to generals, but in poor third world countries like Pakistan, politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians. Pakistan is always on the brink of breaking apart into its widely disparate components. Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together.
General Musharris [sic] seems an upright sort to me and he should be given a chance to put Pakistan's house in order before managing to return to normal politics. <snip> Democracy is a means, not an end in itself and it has a bad name on the streets of Karachi and Lahore."

Then he was back to praise of the PPP when they were in power, supporting the Bhutto clientelist drift:
"Speaking about Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Galloway said that the PPP chairperson has “learnt a lot from his mother and father, and he would be very beneficial for the people of Pakistan”. The British legislator added that he had spoken a lot on the Kashmir and Palestine issues, and was busy working for the development of Islamic countries."
(Express Tribune, February 19th, 2013)
Now that the traditional right is back with Nawaz Sharif I suspect there'll be another shift. The essentials are always the same Pakistan must arm itself independently to liberate Kashmir.

Also interesting is how absent praise of the Red Army's mission in Afghanistan has now become - something that was a Galloway staple throughout the 1980s and 1990s
cf Galloway describing the resignation of Gorbachev as the worst day in his life.

 

[Tom A]

Galloway is an opportunistic cockend. What else is new?

 

[SpineyNorman]

They target our medics so no fucks given.

So provided what 'we' do meets the standards an authoritarian Islamist group that doesn't seem to particularly care what happens to its own population, never mind anyone else's, that's all fine and dandy as far as you're concerned?

You appear think that 'we' are no better than the Taliban and nor should 'we' try to be.

In the same vein, you might argue that since the US army bombed the shit out of Iraq and Afghanistan with no thought for civilian casualties it's therefore perfectly fine for them to bomb hospitals in the US.

That is what you think isn't it? Only otherwise it sort of looks like you're an advocate of terrorism who thinks brown and white people should be held to different standards. If that's the case at least have the balls to say it.

 

[Ole]

Read through it all earlier - the analysis and conclusion by Namazie is spot-on, and contrary to some peoples' first impressions at the beginning of this thread I certainly think there's some worthwhile information in its presentation of the degree to which StwC et al. co-operated with and supported right-wing Islamists. I would note there was a ridiculous bit in it that was implicitly but clearly attempting to smear Salma Yaqoob's character, and badly failing.

Anyway, they've released a new report - 'Sharia Law and Child Protection in Britain'. Only skimmed through it but it looks like an important read.

 

[Tom A]

I would note there was a ridiculous bit in it that was implicitly but clearly attempting to smear Salma Yaqoob's character, and badly failing.

Anyway, they've released a new report - 'Sharia Law and Child Protection in Britain'. Only skimmed through it but it looks like an important read.

I actually quite like Salma Yaqoob, and she is one of the very few Respect people I could say that about.

 

[dominion]

Salma Yaqoob is no longer in Respect. Had something to do with some remarks about "sexual etiquette" made by the charmer himself

 

[Tom A]

Salma Yaqoob is no longer in Respect. Had something to do with some remarks about "sexual etiquette" made by the charmer himself

Which is Respect's loss, and potentially any left organisation worth its salt's gain. Until then she was one of the highest profile members.

 

[Rachelwilkennah]

I don't know if anyone has already mentioned this but people interested in the subject of Islamism and the left may also want to check out this book which covers similar territory: Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-European Left and Universal Human Rights by Meredith Tax
http://www.centreforsecularspace.or...erican-left-and-universal-human-rights-meredi

 

[Tom A]

Oh dear, it seems Maryam Namazie is now supporting a French-style ban on head coverings (so says her recent Twitter debates)

However everyone she's arguing with (including an old uni acquaintance whom fell out with me last year over my calling out Occupy London for having someone publicly calling for the "vaporising of cruisers" in its ranks) is doing the old "pro-Islamist Left" tactic of attempting to denounce anyone who speaks out against fuckwittery carried out in the name of Islam as an "Islamophobe" and a "racist".

For the record, I disagree with such a ban, not just for being highly illiberal, but for the way it singles out a single religious group but not, say, Sikhs wearing turbans, or Catholic nuns wearing habits, or Orthodox Jews wearing kippahs - although I once heard the French ban also covers this, and if that's true it's not something that's mentioned in the media that much if at all, although that being said, it can still be said the justification of the law was motivated by targeting Muslims specifically and that needed to cover their bases so it didn't seem as blatant a piece of anti-Muslim bigotry as it is.

 

[framed]

For the record, I...

Are you being recorded?

 

[Greebo]

Are you being recorded?

Purely for training purposes.

 

[dylanredefined]

You appear think that 'we' are no better than the Taliban and nor should 'we' try to be.

If you must fight a war. Fight it as brutally and violently as you can. Letting the enemy get away with human shields just encourages them to do it again.

 

[SpineyNorman]

If you must fight a war. Fight it as brutally and violently as you can. Letting the enemy get away with human shields just encourages them to do it again.

I wasn't aware that 'we' were at war with Pakistan.

And you realise the likes of Al Qaeda will be rubbing their hands at the thought of the kinds of actions you're seem to support - if the families of the civilian victims weren't Al Qaeda before there's a fair chance they will be afterwards.

Also, by your logic 9/11 and 7/7 were perfectly justified, as was the beheading of Lee Rigby, as were the IRA pub bombings. Basically you're a terrorist sympethiser.

Why don't 'we' just nuke the whole of the Middle East? And if there are Al Qaeda operatives on your street in England would you be OK with 'us' bombing the shit out of your street? Only I don't remember 'us' being at war with Pakistan either.

Can you address the other stuff in that post now please? You know, the stuff that questioned your obvious and possibly racist double standards?

 

[phildwyer]

Nah, to say that it is impossible for 'muslims' to have a reformation unlike 'christians' reeks of total essentialist crap. And by doing so crosses over into islamophobia territory as defined by the Runnymede report on Islamaphobia by positing a closed form of islam as the only form of 'islam' possible...

Well maybe you have a poınt. But he saıd some vıle, bogted thıngs about relıgıon ın general too.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

bogted

 

[butchersapron]

If you must fight a war. Fight it as brutally and violently as you can. Letting the enemy get away with human shields just encourages them to do it again.

Yes, this is clearly the lesson of history.

 

[Pickman's model]

If you must fight a war. Fight it as brutally and violently as you can. Letting the enemy get away with human shields just encourages them to do it again.

where's this from then?

 

[J Ed]

where's this from then?

Racism and stupidity

 

[redsquirrel]

If you must fight a war. Fight it as brutally and violently as you can. Letting the enemy get away with human shields just encourages them to do it again.

You fucking dick.

 

[CharlieChaplin]

I have read through this report in full.

What a disgusting bunch the UAF/STWC/SWP are.

Genuine question. If you are a normal socialist that detests Islamic extremism and capitalism then who do you vote for? Green Party?

Somebody should make a new socialist party.

 

[audiotech]

The poster, formerly known as, 'OswaldMosley', wasn't supporting a "disgusting bunch" then I take it? Just 'aving a larf were we?

 

[barney_pig]

I have read through this report in full.

What a disgusting bunch the UAF/STWC/SWP are.

Genuine question. If you are a normal socialist that detests Islamic extremism and capitalism then who do you vote for? Green Party?

Somebody should make a new socialist party.

That'll be a national and socialist workers party?